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The ping of the elevator sounded before the door slid open.
“For both our sakes,” Lawe stated quietly with much more restraint than he actually felt.
Their gazes locked in silent confrontation, each gauging the other’s intent and the strength behind it before Rule finally gave a slow nod.
“This time,” Rule stated softly. “This time, Lawe. But before I see another take what I know should be yours, I will step around you and claim her myself. One way or the other, no matter the enmity it may cause between us.”
Lawe clenched his fists at his side and forced himself to hold back the anger that pounded through his veins and kept his animal instincts on a sharply honed edge.
He hated that feeling. That feeling that there was another entity rising inside him and threatening to steal the control he’d honed over the years.
His gaze remained locked with his brother’s until the elevator doors slid closed and the small cubicle carrying Rule made its return journey to the lobby of the hotel. He stood, watching the numbers on the digital display count down the elevator’s progress until it reach the lobby.
He made himself stand there, watch, and wait as he fought the primal instincts tearing through him.
He’d managed to keep it at bay during the past months since he’d rescued Diane and realized she was his mate. He’d reined it in and assured himself that he could deny that savage impulse to claim her. Each time they’d come in contact, each time the battle became harder, but he’d still managed to walk away.
As he stalked to her door, that control he’d had most of his life was fading away. The animal part of him was clawing its way to the forefront of his senses, and its attention was locked on a single, subtle scent.
The scent of its mate.
The mate that even now the rational, logical part of his brain was screaming to deny. He couldn’t have her. He wouldn’t allow himself to risk her. But he could ensure, at least for a little while, that the scent he placed on her was strong enough to keep even Rule at bay.
For a little while.
• • •
Diane had finished dinner and cleaned up her mess when she suddenly paused just inside the kitchenette, her gaze slicing to the door at the sound of a keycard sliding through the lock.
The soft hiss was a sound most people would have never detected, but most people hadn’t been trained by her paranoid uncle.
Perhaps paranoid was the wrong word to use. Her very cautious uncle.
In that second, her weapon cleared the holster she wore at the small of her back. The small laser-powered personal defense handgun had the look of the old-style Glock the military once issued, but it contained all the power of the adjustable laser-powered rifles.
The bursts of fiery energy could knock a man off his feet or put a hole in him the size of a bowling ball.
“Put your weapon down, wildcat. It’s just me.”
Diane froze, the weapon still held at her thigh by both hands as the door swung open and he stepped in.
Just me. Just—there was no “just” where Lawe Justice was concerned. There was nothing so simple as that word implied.
Confident, powerful, a supreme male animal and as fucking alpha as he could get, he stepped into the suite as though it belonged to him.
He was complicated, powerful, mysterious and rakish, wicked and seductive, and her entire body seemed to flood with warmth at the sight of him.
Diane remained still, her jaw locked in a deliberate attempt to exert control over herself and her reaction to the sound of the dark, sexually intent tone that had her body wanting to melt.
There were nights when the thought of him, of the touch she ached for, tormented her to the point that she wondered if perhaps he didn’t own a part of her already. At the very least, he owned her fantasies, her erotically charged, sensually tormented fantasies since the first moment when she had opened her eyes to find him standing above her.
Tall, his shoulders broad, his body powerful, the thick, heavy length of his black hair was much longer than it had been the last time she had seen him. He looked as dangerous as she knew he was. As primal and as savagely intense as she sensed he was.
Denim encased long, powerful legs and rode low on his hips to be cinched by a leather belt at his muscular hips. A white cotton shirt, the arms folded to the elbow covered wide shoulders and an impressive chest. Heavy Western boots covered his feet, a silver chain riding low around the heel.
He looked good enough to take a bite of, and her mouth watered to do just that.
The dark overnight growth of a beard shadowed his lower face—most Breeds couldn’t grow a full beard, but that rakish, next-day growth was the norm for those who allowed that sexy to-die-for look. And that was exactly the look Lawe was going for tonight. The look that stripped her down to bare bones, hard-core sex and the need to ride him until they were both exhausted.
